


Reading Signs

by mrstaemin (TheTroninator)



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Mavin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2017-12-24 17:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/942375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTroninator/pseuds/mrstaemin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael doesn't know what else to do when he meets a deaf boy at school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reading Signs

Michael stood there and stared at the object blocking his locker--tall and gangly, scraggly hair, shuffling through some disorganized notebooks and muttering incoherently under his breath. Michael wondered if he would move, tapping his foot. No, he wouldn’t move.

“Hey, douche-canoe, think you might want to move, huh?” Michael barked.

No response.

“Hey, I said move!” he shouted.

Still nothing.

“Hey!” Michael shoved the guy’s shoulder. 

He turned around, a goofy grin plastered on his face. “Sorry?” he said. 

“Move,” Michael enunciated slowly. 

The boy nodded, backing up. “Sorry if you were nicely asking before. I’m deaf. Can’t hear a thing.” He pointed to his ears.

“Yeah, clearly,” Michael sassed back, casting him a glance as his fingers deftly dialed in his locker combination.

“No seriously. I’m deaf,” he replied gravely, in a somewhat British accent.

“Yeah, then how can you talk?” he asked, hoping to call his bluff. “How can you hear me?”

The boy rolled his eyes. “For one, I’m not mute. I wasn’t born deaf, and secondly, I can sort of read lips, ya dummy.”

“Huh. Well I hope you don’t expect an apology,” Michael told him grouchily, rummaging through his locker. This delay will make him late for class.

“What?” he asked in his heavy accent. “You got your noggin in your locker. I can’t see your mouth.”

Michael straightened up and looked him in the eyes. “Who the f- are you?”

“Gavin Free, of course, who be you?”

Michael sighed, placing his books in his hand. “I’m Michael Jones, and you’ve made me late.”

“Well, I’m late, too, you know. Dammit. It’s my first day here and I can’t figure out where my bloody class is….” he rambled, shuffling his papers around more. 

Michael slammed his locker shut, partially out of his own frustration toward this Gavin kid for making him late, and partially to see if it was really true that he was deaf. He’d snap his head to the sound right? Nope. He still noisily shuffled his papers. 

Michael’s inner good Samaritan began to nag him, so he tapped Gavin’s shoulder; the boy looked up, his hair falling into his curious eyes. “I’ll, uh, help you find your class. I’m already late anyway.”

The boy’s face lit up. “Really? You’ll take me to class? Did I get that right?”

Michael smiled involuntarily. “Yeah.”

“Oooh, Michael!” Gavin chimed. 

“It’s too bad you can’t hear how dumb you sound,” Michael mumbled.

“What was that?” Gavin poked the freckled Michael’s side.

“Nothing,” he grinned back, rubbing his poked skin. “Just saying that you’re going to love it here.”  
////  
Michael realized quickly how many classes he and Gavin had together. Day after day, they continued to go to classes together and since that first day when Michael helped Gavin find his classes, the British student became rather attached to him. But he irritated Michael. He would miss sixty percent of what Michael said and have to have him repeat it slowly. He constantly mispronounced things, even more than you’d expect someone with a British accent to do. Worst of all, he got extra time on his test due to being deaf, and that made absolutely no sense. 

Despite hating him, Michael had grown to like him quite a lot. He even had him over to his house a few times. Michael’s mom found him to be polite, but she embarrassed Michael when she talked super slowly to him. But Gavin was used to it and acted appreciative of her condescending behavior anyway.

One day when Michael came home from a particularly frustrating day of school, he resolved that if he couldn’t make the classes any better, he’d make his time with Gavin at school better. “Mom?” he called into his ranch-style home.

“Yes, honey?” she answered, walking into view from the kitchen.

“Will, you, uh, drive me to the library?” he asked, dropping his backpack on the couch. 

His mom eyed the book bag. 

“Ugh,” Michael groaned, picking it up and hauling it to the closet. “Will you please take me to the library?”

“I guess. Why?”

He looked at his hands and rubbed them together. “I think I want to get a book on sign language.”

She cracked a grin. “You really are starting to like that Gavin kid, huh?”

Michael shrugged, a blush boiling under his skin. 

“I’ll drive you. Let me get my keys.”

Michael studied the book intently that night, committing to memorize the alphabet and numbers. He figured out how to say “My name is Michael,” and “You’re an ass.”

The next day at school, Michael caught Gavin’s eye during class and signed the latter message. 

Gavin’s eyes lit up like they did when Michael agreed to take him to class on their first day. “No way,” he whispered back.

“I don’t know much,” Michael mouthed back.

Gavin just gave him a look that said, “I have no clue.” 

Michael mouthed it more dramatically and slowly.

“You have got to get better at that,” Gavin whispered back. 

“You two!” the teacher barked at them. “Be quiet. I’m lecturing.”

“Sorry,” Gavin said with a mockingly sheepish expression. 

She tilted her head and with a sigh said, “it’s okay.” Gavin always got off easy with her. Stupid deaf perk. 

Michael cast Gavin another glance and decided to sign “My name is Michael.”

Gavin giggled at Michael’s adorable fumbling fingers and silly message.

Gavin signed back, “You are a D-O-N-U-T.”

After school that day, Michael asked Gavin if he could come over, and Gavin reluctantly agreed. “My parents aren’t home,” he confessed upon opening the door. 

“It’ll be fine,” Michael assured him, following him in.

Gavin made himself a glass of water and one for Michael too. He swilled the water around and looked up at his friend. “Michael, what does your voice sound like?”

“Like this,” Michael said cheekily, pointing to his throat.

“You know what I mean you nob. Describe it to me,” he requested, leaning onto the kitchen counter, resting his head in his hands.

“Hmmm…” Michael tapped his chin. “I don’t know. I’m bad with words.”

“You’re bad at enunciating,” Gavin complained. “But if you just said that you think you can’t explain it well, just try.” 

Michael closed his eyes. “Um, well, my voice is… not too deep. It’s like, kind of sharp, sometimes, when I’m excited. It gets raspy, too. Okay, I got it. You know, like corduroy?”

“The fabric?” Gavin asks. “Or the children’s book with the teddy bear.”

“The fabric. Maybe that’s what my voice is like. It’s kind of soft, but there’s also some texture to it, you know?”

When Michael opens his eyes, Gavin looks mesmerized. “Let me imagine it,” the Brit replies. “I think it’s cute.”

“Cute?” Michael wonders, sipping his water.

“Like that little teddy bear.”

“Well, great.” 

Gavin looked back down to his hands and the glass of water. “You know what’s kind of sad? I’m forgetting what my own mom’s voice sounded like. I remember when I was young she sang this one song to me all the time about this old lady who ate her pet pigs—morbid when you think about it. Anyway, after I went deaf, she’d still sing it to me and just tell me to imagine what her voice sounds like. At first it was easy. But now, it’s like her voice in my head is fading away.” 

Michael wasn’t sure how to respond.

“But, it’s easier now to talk to my family. They’ve learned how to sign and I can (sorta) read lips, so, it’s cool.” Gavin flashed Michael a fake grin.

“Can you tell me how to sign, ‘loser?’” 

Gavin gave Michael a real smirky smile now, and a middle finger. He liked Michael’s ability to just accept his deafness and not treat him like his teacher did, or like Michael’s mom. He could joke about it with him, and somehow, it made Gavin feel more like a regular kid and not some pathetic sad sack.  
///  
Michael continued to learn sign language. There wasn’t much time left in the school year by the time he could accurately and quickly sign to Gavin that he should come over after school or that they should totally cut class one of these days. And even though Michael could hear just fine, Gavin would sign back so they could communicate silently during school. Everyone antagonized them because they could talk all day without getting in trouble and they would never know if they were talking about them. They never were, though, because quite frankly, neither much cared for gossip about people they didn’t much care for.

One Wednesday, Gavin signed that he wouldn’t be in class the next day, on account of a doctor’s appointment. Michael understood, and wasn’t surprised when he didn’t see Gavin at school the next day. But when he didn’t see him the next day, he felt concerned. He shot Gavin a message over IM that night, expressing his concern. 

Gavin typed back promptly: come over to my house tomorrow i have a surprisey-poo!

Michael complied, and the next day, he nervously and excitedly knocked on the door, expecting Gavin’s mother to answer, or maybe his dad. But the door swung open and Michael saw a bright-eyed Gavin standing there instead.

“Say something, Michael,” Gavin commanded without even a hello, grinning ear to ear, pulling him into the house and shutting the door behind him.

Michael looked around himself to see if this was some kind of set up. “Uh, what should I say?”

“That was perfect,” Gavin told him. “That was amazing.” 

Gavin flung his arms around his friend. Michael still didn’t understand exactly.

“What the f- dude?” Michael asked, nearly being choked by Gavin. 

“Michael, I can hear you,” Gavin whispered. “And it’s even better than you described.”

“What?!” Micahel spat, leaning away from Gavin’s boa constrictor hug.

“It’s a cochlear implant,” Gavin explained, pointing to his newly functioning ears. “I finally was able to get some. I can hear again. I can hear my mother singing to me again. I-I-I can hear your voice!”

Michael bewildered eyes filled with tears. “You can… hear me?” 

Gavin nodded.

“So you’re telling me….” Michael held up his hands and signed, “I learned this for nothing?”

“No, not for nothing. It made me fall in love with my little boy.” Gavin threw his arms around Michael again. “Tell me a story or something, just keep talking.”

“Um, wait, you’re in love with me?”

“Not now, Michael. You talk.”

Michael leaned down the hug a bit. “Well, uh, I suppose I should take this opportunity to say, I’m glad I helped you find your way to class on your first day. And uh…”

“Speak up, Michael. My hearing’s not perfect-o.”

Michael looked Gavin right in the eyes; Gavin looked down at Michael’s mouth. 

“You don’t have to stare at my lips anymore do you?”

“I reckon not, but I still like to. Old habits die hard, as they say,” he half-whispered, leaning closer.

Michael’s heart pounded in his chest. He wasn’t expecting this. “Is this the surprise?” he squeaked uncharacteristically as the gap between their lips became negligible. 

Gavin hesitated for a moment to allow himself a chuckle. Then a sudden horrorstruck look plastered itself on his face. “Wait, you do want me to kiss you, right?”

Michael’s face turned into a tomato. “Um, yes.”

Gavin smiled. “It’s to hear things like that I’m glad I’m not completely deaf anymore.”


End file.
